Paco´s Life: Madrid

California Dreaming: San Francisco I

Travelling at my own is something I did only once, in Bangkok and it worked out pretty well so when I knew Giorgos had to leave the States on the 23th and, since I still had a few days off, I decided to use them for visiting San Francisco. So I got there, on the 23th morning, with my California guide in the pocked and carrying the big bag. The first feeling I got was very positive, you get down the subway at Union Square and you realize the city has little to do with any other in the country. It looks more like Madrid or any other big European capital, people all over, guys playing music on the street and a collection of the most weird and different characters: plenty of fucked up hippies, homeless, business men with their suits, a really colourful mix. Anyway, I head to one of the hostels recommended by the Lonely Planet, the Dakota hostel, typical place for backpackers, with a pretty big shared kitchen and living room. It was kinda expensive for a place like that but my idea was trying to meet some people there so I wouldn’t spend Christmas night alone. About accommodation search, the fact is that you have to be careful where you walk around in SF, at some point you are in a normal commercial street and after waking just a few meters you get into the Bronx, with drug dealers and very bad looking guys hanging around. This is one of the cities of the States with more homeless population, you see very fucked up people. Anyway, that first day I walk through the downtown (more skycrappers) and I visited the Bay Bridge. There are two main bridges connecting San Francisco with Oakland: the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge. The first one if the famous one, symbol of the city, even though the second one was actually built first and is longer. The pictures are not too good since I had to use my mobile phone (my camera had some trouble in the ICEX meeting in Stockholm). After the bridge I head to Chinatown, San Francisco a very multi-cultural city, there is a chinesse neibourghood, a spanish one, an Italian…Chinatown was the typical thing; plenty of shops selling every kind of stuff, chinesses all over. As I had been eating Mexican most of the trip I took my chance to taste a delicious bowl of nuddles. And that night I hit the bed as early as 10, after recalling my Las Vegas experience by watching Ocean´s Eleven on TV. By the way, very friendly people I met that day, in the restaurant I had dinner at my own, an Indian couple spoke to me when they saw I was alone. Just because I was exhausted I could not socialize too much, if not I would have probably tried to join their Christmas dinner But I definitely needed a rest, the jetlag was over so I could sleep a well deserved 12 hours.

Next day I woke up full of energy and looking forward a proper exploration of the city. I walked around the Italian area and, maybe recalling that great summer in Copenhagen, I go myself a bike to cycle the North area of the city and cross the Golden Bridge (the famous one). Very spectacular, it was quite a ride and I got the views from both sides of the bridge. It is a pity that, because of the bad camera, the city skyline on the back can not be fully appreciated. On the other side of the Golden Bridge there is a very nice city called Sausalitos, from there you can take the ferry back to San Francisco. This is the typical tourist itinerary but of course I complicated it a little bit getting lost, I ended up tired of so much cycling. It felt a lot of relief when I finally got ride of the bike. On the afternoon I head to one of the many panoramic points in the city, San Francisco is very famous because of its roller-coaster streets. Walking there is a good exercise and each street you manage to climb offers you a great view of the city. The most spectacular is supposed to be the one of the top of the Russian Hill. I don’t know if this can be appreciated in the picture but the street leading there is actually a zig-zag, it´s very funny to see cars going down there.

Alcatraz

Russian Hill